Part A: Introduction

Greenspirit Strategies Ltd. is a communications consulting firm that provides strategic planning and delivery on environmental and sustainability issues. It's our mission, our passion and our area of unparalleled expertise.

We're pioneers in global markets campaigning, and have worked sustainability files on five continents. Our team draws on some 50 years of combined experience in domestic and international engagement on sustainability - from activism through to sustainability communications programming on forests, agriculture, aquaculture, biodiversity, energy, climate change, GMOs, pharmaceuticals, and polymers in Canada, the United States, Brazil, Indonesia, Australia and throughout Europe.

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Part B: What is Sustainability? – the GSL View

My colleagues and I are really pleased to be here today in order to talk to you about what we think is an opportunity – from a community standpoint, and economic standpoint and, most important, from an environmental perspective.

In my view, sustainability means more than pursuing exclusively economic values, or social ones alone, or environmental ones to the exclusion of human welfare.

Lots of people have referred to this idea as the three legs of the sustainability stool, or as the Corporate Social Responsibility movement, or even as the "triple bottom line."

It means looking at the ecological, social and economic values together – as a whole – and attempting to balance and integrate them into a best case for all these priorities.

BC’s West Coast is an area I know extremely well – I was born in a small coastal resource town on the northern tip of Vancouver Island and I still return there every chance I get.

I know that the future doesn’t always look very promising for the folks in my home town of Winter Harbour or for the folks in Port Hardy or Campbell River or so many other coastal communities.

And I know enough to be able to say to you today that the answer is not to fend off economic development, but to look for solutions – to identify win-win initiatives and then to get behind them.

GSL views sustainability as being the search for the win-win solutions – the balance among the ecological, social and economic values. I think the offshore energy initiative is potentially one of those opportunities for a win-win outcome.

And I want to tell you why I think it’s such a great opportunity.


Part C: Offshore Energy – a Bridge to Renewable Energy in BC

I’ve always been a strong promoter of renewable energy technology. In British Columbia we’re really very lucky to have an economy so strongly based on renewable energy and material resources. The combination of hydroelectric power, forest resources, agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture give our province one of the most renewable-based economies in the world.

Some of you may know I was born in a logging camp on the northern tip of Vancouver Island. Throughout my 15 years in the environmental movement in the leadership of Greenpeace I was always very proud of the fact that my heritage was so closely connected with forests which provide both the most biodiverse ecosystems and the most abundant renewable resource on the planet.

But BC’s strong reputation for renewables doesn’t come only from its great forest industry. Look at the hydro that provides about 90% of our electricity, or the agriculture and aquaculture sectors, or the relatively new geothermal industry that takes stored solar energy in the ground and uses it to heat and cool peoples’ homes in an efficient and renewable way.

Now, we all know oil and gas are non-renewable fossil fuels. It is a fact that proven oil and gas reserves are far more abundant today than once thought. But these are non-renewable resources -- by definition they cannot last forever.

So, isn’t it a sensible approach to use some of the revenue from oil and gas development as a bridge to greater dependence on renewable energy in the future?

The four most important sources of renewable energy for British Columbia are:

- Hydroelectric
- Biomass
- Geothermal (Ground-Source Heat Pumps for Heating and Cooling)
- Wind

Hydroelectricity is well established. Biomass is known to the forest products industry through its power co-generation initiatives and other developments, but it’s not nearly the power generator that it could be in a renewable-based economy.

Similarly, geothermal and wind energy are much talked about, and fairly well established in some jurisdictions in the US and Canada, but the potential for geothermal and wind to be part of a sustainable future is huge.

With the exception of hydro, these renewables are not being used to the extent they should. And that means we have a tremendous opportunity to seize the offshore development initiative and do something constructive with it for the long-term benefit of all British Columbians.

For example, a special fund could be created from offshore oil and gas revenues to finance support for and implementation of renewable energy technologies. This fund could assist British Columbia in becoming a leader in renewable technologies. The focus should be on developing state-of-the-art, cost-effective energy generation using market-based principles.


On Social Values

Allow me to talk a little bit about my home – Winter Harbour on northern Vancouver Island, a beautiful area populated by hardworking, optimistic people who share a love of land and sea.

Towns like Port Hardy, Port McNeill, Port Alice, Ocean Falls, Zeballos, Tahsis, Gold River, and Port Alberni have been through tough economic cycles that would make some of blush. These areas are in great need of employment.

For years, the forest industry was their lifeline. That’s less true today, although many of us think we might have come through the worst on that front.

Aquaculture presents one such opportunity – really one of the ONLY bright spots on the horizon – for some of these settlements. Communities, including First Nations communities, are doing their best to move aquaculture forward, get additional farms sites approved by the federal government and get on with the job of sustainable development.

It’s in the same spirit that I strongly support the notion of oil and gas providing a bridge to the future for many of these same communities – not only to meet their own energy needs, but to meet their community economic requirements as well. And not only Vancouver Island communities, but also those in northwestern BC and – as the economic chain stretches from the resource community straight to the urban centre – communities right here in the Lower Mainland.


On Economics

You’ll have heard by now that the energy sector in this province is an absolutely crucial part of our future. Anytime you can cite a number like 35,000 current direct jobs in this province and $3 billion per year in government revenue, you know you’re discussing a critical piece of our livelihood.

Many of my friends in rural BC talk openly about how important these potential new jobs are for their future. In fact, today I’m joined by some colleagues, Leanne Brunt and Barb Walker, who represent a grass roots group called the First Dollar Alliance. This Alliance wants to make sure the folks in the city understand the importance of resource activity out in the rural areas. They’re communicating the hard reality to an urban audience that sometimes simply doesn’t understand the fact we’re predominately – and proudly, I might add – a resource economy.

In BC, more than two thirds of our economic activity starts when people in Campbell River, Fort St. John, Prince George or Cranbrook or other towns like these take a natural resource like trees, fish and rocks, and turn them into valuable commodities like forest products, fish filets and metals. For the most part, that’s why Vancouver has lawyers, financial analysts, consultants like us, hospitality and transportation workers and a big, beautiful airport. It’s based on activity that starts when the folks in the rural areas make that “First Dollar” that keeps the economy rolling.

Offshore energy is also about creating that first dollar. It’s not only our resource communities that benefit from it; it’s our urban centres. The First Dollar Alliance is explaining that through its web site at firstdollar.ca. It’s an important part of this discussion.


On Ecological Benefits

But it's not just about the economy and communities. I said at the start, it’s also about the environment. As a lifelong ecologist, here’s why I feel positive about the offshore energy initiative.

First of all, it is relatively safe:

Whether it’s the North Sea, China, the Gulf of Mexico, or Canada’s Hibernia off Newfoundland – the record of safety is clear and unquestioned. Most oil spills are from tankers transporting oil thousands of miles from other countries, not from oil platforms right off the coast.

Second, there are real ecological benefits.

That’s right. More than the fact that safe technologies are in use, researchers in offshore energy are producing case studies that point out tremendous marine benefits from offshore oil and gas facilities

For example:

In California there is an application in process for an aquaculture cage system to be anchored to a now active oil platform; once it is decommissioned. The proposal calls for the base of the platform to be left for an aquaculture support structure, an artificial reef that could allow aquaculture operations in much more exposed locations than at present.

We’re all aware that undersea infrastructure becomes an artificial reef that provides habitat for thousands of marine species from shellfish to herring. An artificial reef society in Vancouver is in the business of purposely sinking decommissioned vessels and aircraft precisely for that reason – to enhance marine life for the benefit of divers. Artificial reefs are also capable of increasing commercial fisheries productivity in the waters around them by providing additional habitat.

There is no reason why active aquaculture operations could not take place while an offshore oil platform was in active production. What better way to make sure any negative impacts to the environment are detected early. The farmed fish or shellfish can be used as the proverbial canaries in the coal mine.


The US Experience

We have recent US experience to look to in order to see the artificial reef concept in real life:

Research funded by the Minerals Management Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the industry-supported California Artificial Reef Enhancement Program involved extensive underwater surveys of marine life at rigs and natural reefs in the Santa Barbara Channel.

The results of the research were released last summer in a report called: “The Ecological Role of Oil and Gas Production Platforms and Natural Outcrops on Fishes in Southern and Central California.” See: http://offshore-environment.com/abandonment.html and: http://www.enn.com/news/2003-10-17/s_9213.asp

The report describes the assemblages of fish observed at numerous platforms and, for the purposes of comparison, also looked at dozens of rock reefs and outcrops in the same general areas.

The research shows that drilling platforms are important not just as collectors of marine life but also as fish producers. The rigs harbored huge numbers of young rockfish in greater concentrations than the natural reefs, as well as more large adult rockfish than did the natural habitats. In general, the rigs had more fish and more species of fish than the natural reefs.

Fisherman, aquaculture workers, First Nations – need to consider this might be the win-win they’ve been looking for.

Other examples:

- A Louisiana State University sea grant college study shows that 85 percent of Louisiana fishing trips involve fishing around these structures.

- The same study shows that there’s 50 times more marine life around an oil production platform than in the surrounding mud bottoms.

- Louisiana started a "Rigs to Reef" program, which pays the oil companies to keep the platforms in the Gulf. Neighboring states like Alabama and Florida stand in line to buy old rigs from the oil companies to dump off their coasts to enhance fisheries. (It was the fishermen in the Gulf that demanded the oil rigs not be removed when they were decommissioned)

- Japanese concerns are buying disused oil platforms from Shell Oil for aquaculture projects.

- Commercial fishing vessels from Taiwan and Japan fish Louisiana's waters.

- Louisiana produces one-third of America's commercial fisheries – some say this is because of, not in spite of, these platforms.
See: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/4/12/132638.shtml

In all these cases, there hasn’t been a significant oil spill.


Part D: Concluding Remarks

In closing, I look at offshore energy development not as an end, but as a possible means to a number of ends: economic development, support for renewable energy development, and enhanced marine productivity. The initiative we’re talking about here today can be an extremely important one in bridging us to a future that is both more prosperous and more environmentally sound than our present circumstance.

Let’s look at this opportunity with our eyes open. On economic grounds, on community and social grounds, and on ecological grounds, I see those opportunities clearly.

Let’s take this opportunity and let’s use it to our mutual, sustainable benefit!

Thank your for allowing me to speak to you today.

Patrick Moore PhD.


Appendices

Decommissioning, abandonment and removal off obsolete offshore installations
by Stanislav Patin, translation by Elena Cascio
based on Environmental Impact of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry"

Below you will find a brief overview of decommissioning, abandonment and removal off offshore oil and gas installation, including a discussion on secondary use of obsolete structures and reef effects of offshore rigs and platforms.

To learn more about Environmental Impact of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry, click on the links at the end of the page.

Abandonment options
The extremely high cost of decommissioning and removal off offshore installations led to the need to revise some of the national and international regulations adopted about 40 years ago.

Such a revision covered, in particular, the requirement set by the Convention on the Continental Shelf (Geneva, 1958) and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Montego Bay, 1982) to remove abandoned offshore installations totally.

At present, a more flexible and phased approach is used. It suggests immediate and total removal of offshore structures (mainly platforms) weighing up to 4,000 tons in the areas with depths less than 75 m and after 1998 - at depths less than 100 m.

In deeper waters, removing only the upper parts from above the sea surface to 55 m deep and leaving the remaining structure in place is allowed. The removed fragments can be either transported to the shore or buried in the sea.

This approach considers the possibility of secondary use of abandoned offshore platforms for other purposes.

From the technical-economic perspective, the larger the structures are and the deeper they are located, the more appropriate it is to leave them totally or partially intact.

In shallow waters, in contrast, total or partial structure removal makes more sense. The fragments can be taken to the shore, buried, or reused for some other purposes.

From the fisheries perspective, any options when the structures or their fragments are left on the bottom may cause physical interference with fishing activities.

In these cases, the possibility of vessel and gear damages and corresponding losses does not disappear with termination of production activities in the area.

Instead, abandoned structures pose the threat to fishing for many decades after the oil and gas operators leave the site. The obsolete pipelines left on the bottom are especially dangerous in this respect. Their degradation and uncontrolled dissipation over wide areas may lead to the most unexpected situations occurring during bottom trawling in the most unexpected places.

At the same time, national and international agreements about the decommissioning and abandonment of offshore installations refer mostly to large, fixed structures like drilling platforms.

The fate of underwater pipelines is still not affected by clear regulations.
Secondary use of offshore fixed platforms
The options of reusing abandoned platforms, their foundations, and other structures that are out of service have been actively discussed for the last 10 years.

An analysis of scientific potential of research stations permanently based on abandoned oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico revealed several promising directions of marine research at such stations [Dokken, 1993; Gardner, Wiebe, 1993].

These include studying regulation of the marine populations and coral reproduction, making underwater observations, monitoring the sea level, and collecting oceanographic and meteorological information within the framework of international projects.

Some other suggestions consider transformation of abandoned platforms into places for power generation using wind/wave and thermal energy [Rowe, 1993].

These platforms also could be used as bases for search and rescue operations or centers for waste processing and disposal [Side, 1992].

From the fisheries perspective, the most interesting projects are the ones aimed at converting the fixed marine structures into artificial reefs. Artificial reefs are known to be one of the most effective means of increasing the bioproductivity of coastal waters by providing additional habitats for marine life. They are widely and effectively used on the shelves of many countries.
The offshore structures can undoubtedly attract many species of migrating invertebrates and fish searching for food, shelter, and places to reproduce. In particular, observations in the Gulf of Mexico revealed a strong positive correlation between the amount of oil platforms, growing since the 1950s, and commercial fish catches in the region.

It became one of the reasons to suggest the positive impact of offshore oil and gas developments on the fish populations and stock. Wide popularization of this fact led to the mass movement using the slogan "From rigs - to reefs" in the USA in the mid-1980s.

However, further analyses of the fishing situation in the Gulf of Mexico showed that the growth of the fish catch in this case was connected not with increasing the total stock and abundance of commercial species but with their redistribution due to the reef effect of the platforms.

A critical point here was the use of static gear methods of fishing (e.g., lines and hooks) instead of trawl gears. Besides, the areas around the platforms became very popular places of recreational and sport fishing. This also made a significant contribution to the total catch volumes.

Nothing similar was noted in the North Sea, where the number of oil platforms has also been growing since the 1960s. However, the total catch did not correlate with this growth at all and even decreased.

This fact indicates the absence of any positive impact of the reef effect of oil platforms on the commercial fish catches in areas where the main way to fish is trawling.

At the same time, we should not forget about the danger that abandoned offshore oil platforms and their fragments pose to navigation and trawling fishing. With an abundance of such artificial reefs, this problem requires special regulations for negotiating the inevitable conflict of interests.

One such regulatory program has been developed and applied in the USA in the Gulf of Mexico on the shelf of Louisiana [Pope et al., 1993].

It requires mapping the area to indicate the locations of platforms, underwater pipelines, and other structures left on the bottom.

The program also includes monitoring, collecting data, developing a warning system, and other activities necessary to control the situation and ensure safety in the region.

Explosive activities
Complete or partial removal of steel or concrete fixed platforms that weigh thousands of tons is practically impossible without using explosive materials.

Bulk explosive charges have been used in 90% of cases. This is very powerful, although short-term, impact on the marine environment and biota, which should not be neglected.
It is extremely difficult to get any reliable estimates of possible mortality of marine organisms, especially fish, during an explosive activity even if the initial data, such as the type of explosive, depth of the water, bottom relief, and others, are known.

This large uncertainty is connected, in particular, with the high heterogeneity of fish distribution that strongly depends on specific features of fish schooling behavior.

Calculations show that with a 2.5-ton (TNT equivalent) charge, the mass of killed fish will be about 20 tons during each explosion. At the same time, if, for example, a school of herring happens to get into that zone, the fish kill figure may be much higher [Side, Davies, 1989].

One of the few known observations of fish damage in zones of explosive activity was done in 1992 in the Gulf of Mexico near the shore of Louisiana and Texas [Gitschlag, Herczeg, 1994]. In order to remove over 100 fixed platforms and other structures, more than 12,000 kg of plastic charges were exploded.

The amount of dead fish floating on the surface was visually recorded after the explosions. It totaled to about 51,000 specimens. The actual number of killed fish was undoubtedly higher because many specimens could not float to the surface or did not get in the zone of visual observation.

Whatever number of adult fish actually died during the explosions, it will hardly influence the total abundance of commercial species. Much more hazardous for the fish stock are explosive impacts on fish larvae and juveniles.

The threshold of lethal impacts for the younger organisms weighing up to several grams is tens of times lower than that for adult specimens [Yelverton et al., 1975; Side, 1992]. Thus, the zone of mortality of fish at the early stages of development is respectively wider.

The quantitative estimates of possible effects at the populational level are even more complicated because of the absence of corresponding data and methods. Nevertheless, enough evidence exists to enforce strict regulations of explosive activities and to forbid them in areas and in seasons of spawning and fry development of commercial fish.

Removal of the offshore structures also decreases the number of habitats for structure-related fish. For example, in the mostly soft-bottom environment of the Gulf of Mexico, these structures provide hard substrates for marine organisms.

The decline of stocks of reef fish observed in this region within the past decade can be connected, in particular, with elimination of over 400 oil-related structures that had served as an artificial habitat for marine life [MMS, 1995].

Rigs provide key habitat, says study


Friday, October 17, 2003
By John Krist


VENTURA, Calif. — To some residents of southern and central California, the 26 offshore oil and gas rigs scattered along the coastline are ominous reminders of a potential ecological catastrophe. To others, the spidery steel structures are the legacy of an industry that for decades helped fuel the region's growth and prosperity.

To millions of fish and other forms of sea life, the platforms are simply home. And with many of those rigs nearing the end of their useful lives, a new report by researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara is likely to provide powerful ammunition to those who want the structures left in place after the oil companies shut them down.

There's never been any serious disagreement over whether offshore oil platforms provide habitat for marine life. The steel legs, pipes, and cross-braces between the sea floor and the water's surface are encrusted with thick layers of mussels and other invertebrates and provide myriad hiding places for fish. Divers, photographers, and sport fishers willing to risk entangling expensive gear have long been drawn to the rigs by the rich abundance of life that swirls around them.

What's never been clear, however, is whether the rigs merely attract and concentrate creatures who would live somewhere else if the structures were not there, or whether they actually increase the population of marine life by providing more protected nurseries for young fish and increasing the amount of food and habitat available for breeding-age adults.

In 1995, Milton Love and his colleagues at UCSB's Marine Science Institute began a six-year search for answers to those questions, which figure prominently into the debate about whether oil companies should be required to remove the platforms after production ceases, a costly process the industry prefers to avoid but one that some environmental organizations demand.

The research was funded by the Minerals Management Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the industry-supported California Artificial Reef Enhancement Program. It involved extensive underwater surveys of marine life at rigs and natural reefs in the Santa Barbara Channel.

The results of the research were released in late August in a report with a rather cumbersome title: "The Ecological Role of Oil and Gas Production Platforms and Natural Outcrops on Fishes in Southern and Central California." It describes in great detail the assemblages of fish observed at numerous platforms and, for comparison purposes, at scores of rock reefs and outcrops in the same general areas.

The surveys suggest drilling platforms are important not just as collectors of marine life but as producers. The rigs harbored huge numbers of young rockfish in greater concentrations than the natural reefs. The rigs also had more large adult rockfish than the natural habitats did. In general, the rigs had more fish and more species of fish than the natural reefs.

To Love, this suggests the relatively inaccessible rigs are serving as de facto marine refuges for these often depleted species, supporting a more normal assemblage of fish — young-of-the-year, juveniles, and large adults — than the reefs, where heavy fishing pressure has removed most of the older individuals.

"Ironically, some of these platforms may be more 'natural' than some of these natural reefs," Love said.

There appear to be no hard-and-fast rules about what to do with a decommissioned oil rig. Options range from removal to leaving them in place. They can also be cut off above or below the waterline, leaving part of the structure left standing. In recent years, seven platforms have been shut down and removed from the Santa Barbara Channel.

Linda Krop, executive director of the Environmental Defense Center, contends there's still insufficient evidence to prove that the sea creatures on the rigs would not just live somewhere else if the platforms were removed and says there are issues other than marine biology — navigational safety, pollution, legal obligations — that must be considered. She also is concerned that allowing the rigs to remain would encourage the offshore disposal of other industrial junk under the pretense of creating habitat.

"The ocean is not a dumping ground," she said.

Still, Love and his team are the only ones who've actually counted fish at so many platforms and so many reefs. And the evidence they've amassed lends credence to the argument put forth primarily by self-interested recreational fishing interests and energy companies that the rigs are too ecologically valuable to be removed when they stop producing oil and gas.


John Krist is a senior reporter and Opinion page columnist for the Ventura (Calif.) County Star and a contributing editor for California Planning & Development Report. A journalist for nearly 20 years, he writes frequently about environmental issues and Western land-use policy.

Send comments to feedback@enn.com.


Related Links
Minerals Management Service information about platform decommissioning
MMS rigs-to-reefs information
Dr. Milton Love's platform research report

Offshore Oil Drilling: An Environmental Bonanza
Humberto Fontova
Friday, April 12, 2002
Greenie-Weenies oppose offshore oil drilling anywhere off the U.S. coast.
As usual, here in Louisiana, the genuine "northernmost banana republic" (I was born in Cuba: I know one when I see one), we see things differently. Of the 3,739 offshore oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico nowadays, 3,203 lie off our coast. We love offshore oil drilling, and not just for the loot extorted from oil companies for the privilege.
Most oil spills occur from tankers, not production platforms or pipelines. Tankers are used to transport foreign oil here. We'd use less foreign oil if restrictions on offshore oil drilling were removed. Never mind that with the Mideast mess and Chavez in power in Venezuela we'll soon have less to transport here anyway.
But forget cheaper oil and less pollution for a second. All fishermen and scuba divers out there should plead with their states to open up offshore oil drilling posthaste. I'm talking about the fabulous fishing – the EXPLOSION of marine life that accompanies the offshore oil platforms.
"Environmentalists" wake up in the middle of the night sweating and whimpering about offshore oil platforms only because they've never seen what's under them. This proliferation of marine life around the platforms turned on its head every "expert" opinion of its day.
The original plan, mandated by federal environmental "experts" back in the late '40s, was to remove the big, ugly, polluting, environmentally hazardous contraptions as soon as they stopped producing. Fine, said the oil companies.
About 10 years ago some wells played out off Louisiana and the oil companies tried to comply. Their ears are still ringing from the clamor fishermen put up. Turns out those platforms are going nowhere, and by popular demand of those with a bigger stake in the marine environment than any "environmentalist."
Every "environmental" superstition against these structures was turned on its head. Marine life had EXPLODED around these huge artificial reefs:
· A study by LSU's sea grant college shows that 85 percent of Louisiana fishing trips involve fishing around these structures.
· The same study shows that there's 50 times more marine life around an oil production platform than in the surrounding mud bottoms.
· Louisiana started a "Rigs to Reef" program, which pays the oil companies to keep the platforms in the Gulf. Neighboring states like Alabama and Florida stand in line to buy old rigs from the oil companies to dump off their coasts to enhance fisheries.
· Japanese concerns are buying them from Shell Oil for aquaculture projects.
· Commercial fishing vessels from Taiwan and Japan fish Louisiana's waters.
· Louisiana produces one-third of America's commercial fisheries (because of, not in spite of, these platforms).
· Most of the nation's spearfishing records were winched aboard around these oil platforms.
· And not one major oil spill! Not one!
In 1986 Louisiana started the Rigs to Reef program, a cooperative effort by oil companies, the feds and the state. This program literally pays the oil companies to keep the platforms in the Gulf. Now they just cut them off at the bottom and topple them over as artificial reefs; 58 have been toppled thus far.
Louisiana wildlife and fisheries officials were recently invited to Australia to help them with a similar program.
Yes, Australia. Yes, the nation with the Great Barrier Reef, the world's biggest natural reef, the world's top dive destination – they're asking for help from Louisiana about developing exciting dive sites by using the very structures that epitomize (in greenie eyes) environmental disaster. In Louisiana we know better.
You could cover the Great Barrier Reef with a huge oil spill and radioactive waste; spear every last one of its fish, including the angel and butterfly fish, during a mega-spearfishing rodeo featuring 10,000 drunkards blasting the fish with power-heads; purse-seine, trammel-net and long-line the area until there was nothing left but three half-starved butterfly fish.
Do all this, then drop three oil platforms nearby and in three years you'd have more and bigger fish than the total of those photographed by the enviro-yuppies around the Great Barrier Reef.
The panorama under an offshore oil platform staggers the most experienced divers.
I've seen divers fresh from the Cayman's Wall surface from under an oil platform too wired on adrenaline to do anything but stutter and wipe spastically at the snot that trails to their chins.
I've seen an experienced scuba-babe fresh from Belize climb out from under a platform gasping and shrieking at the sights and sensations, oblivious to the sights and sensations she was providing with her bikini top near her navel.
Humberto Fontova holds an M.A. in history from Tulane University. He's the author of "Helldiver's Rodeo," described as "Highly entertaining!" by Publisher's Weekly, as "Terrific!" by Salon.com, and as "Just what the doctor ordered!" by Ted Nugent.
You may reach Mr. Fontova by e-mail at hfontova@earthlink.net